


I really should be leaving but I stay

by writingonpostcards



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, M/M, One Night Stands, Pre-Relationship, Smut, with character exploration and backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-01-10 01:17:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12288171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingonpostcards/pseuds/writingonpostcards
Summary: Derek doesn't do relationship since... Well, he doesn't do relationships, but he excels at one-night-stands. He has a system and it works. He doesn't need any more than that. He's happy. Then he spends a night with Stiles and something changes.He thinks later, selfishly, that he wishes Lydia had been that little bit sicker, because then he would have stayed at home with her that night, and he never would have met Stiles.But it didn’t happen that way.AN: First chapter can be read as a stand-alone PWP





	1. Part I

_Come over or not, I've been so ready to dim my mind, your body a drug for mine._

 

The way Derek sees it, there are dozens upon dozens of different ways to have sex. He knows because he’s done most all of them.

 

In his head though, Derek has a scale with three defining points that he judges his proclivities against. A point of reference for when he’s picking people up. Three distinct types of sex that can occur.

 

He goes out, he finds someone, watches them; matches them up with his scale based on a number of factors running from dress and mannerisms all the way down to vocabulary and nail care. If Derek knows what they want it makes the fun later on more rewarding for all involved parties. It’s control. And Derek is a big fan of control.

 

On one end of the scale is the hard and fast sex; not always dirty, but never ‘nice’. This kind of sex is a competition, one Derek excels at. It’s about who can make who come the fastest, the most times, in the most inventive ways. It’s a scramble and a dash and is the kind of activity that leaves behind evidence in its wake. A shoe there, a top over there, a popped button or two still spinning when the first orgasm of the night crashes in. It’s loud, taunting, teasing, playing hard and fast (or quick and loose, depending) with the edges of begging, praise, taunting, hundreds of other possible scenarios. It’s _give give give_ and not _take_ so much as _you_ _can’t not take_. It’s forced. It’s as selfish as sex with another person can be. Feel how good my tongue feels on you, in you. Feel how far my fingers can splay across your chest or curve inside you. Feel how many places I can devastate you at once. Aren’t I talented? Aren’t I making you feel good?

 

Friday night was like that. Andie was his latest pick up from the new bar a few blocks from his flat. Tipsy but not drunk, confident but not conceited, and a really fucking good lay. She was yanking his shirt off while they were still in the corridor and Derek already had her bra unclasped under her shirt. She liked using her tongue and Derek had no complaints considering it spent the first part of the night on his dick and up his ass. Besides, he was confident that letting Andie put the first orgasm on the scoreboard was more arousing for her than the other way around. He’s never misread a person yet and when he brings her off with a few deft flicks of his tongue and a practised move of his fingers he grins victorious before working her backwards with a combination of kissing and leading hands into his room and onto the massive bed with its wrought iron headboard.

 

In the middle of the scale is what most call vanilla sex. Now, Derek has always liked vanilla as a flavour, whether that’s ice-cream, cake, drinks; even the smell of a fresh vanilla pod is stimulating in a way most other scents aren’t. It’s clean and simple, infinitely more appealing than any artificial flavour could ever be. That’s how the sex is too. Straightforward, simple, tried and true, but thrilling in a blunt way. You’ve done it nearly a hundred times before but it hasn’t lost the charm. Starts with eye-fucking (that’s a prelude to any type of sex), then it’s kissing, then wandering hands, removal of clothes, half a hand job, half a blowjob, intercourse in one of the stock positions. Vanilla translates as comfort to a lot of people and talk is easy if either of you care for it. ‘Harder’, ‘move up a bit’, ‘don’t stop’. Crisp as vanilla. Nothing wrong with this sex, nothing extraordinary either, but still fun, still pleasurable, still results in orgasm. In a way, it’s more freeing than any other type of sex, leaves more room for a person’s personality to come through.

 

Mark was vanilla to a T. Easy conversation at the bar, friendly cab ride, pointed staring in the elevator and pausing to remove shoes and jackets in the entranceway before Derek took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. Kissing him was almost soothing, a lulling boat in near still water, but it built up in increments like it always does. Derek takes off his own shirt, flexes a few times, stays kneeling above the other man before taking Mark’s shirt off as well. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Where do you want me?’ ‘Can we try this instead?’ Mark laughing when his sweaty hand slips from the iron bedpost and whacks into Derek’s shoulder. Derek laughing too and helping Mark find his place again, rolling his body over the other man’s in a steady reassurance until there wasn’t any more laughter.

 

At the other end of the scale resides sensuality. The sex that starts from that first glance across the bar, a crowded room at a restaurant, over the top of a book in the library. It doesn’t register as sexual, that first look; at least not to others. Looks become more frequent, longer held, questioning and inquisitive, eventually moving towards heated and with intent. Foreplay stretches out and out and out and even when you’re alone it’s ‘would you like a drink’ and ‘yes please’ and ‘you have a lovely place’ before it’s ever a hand pressing gently to an arm or thigh, a gaze dropping down to lips, a slow move in to press foreheads together. Everything after that is slow too, drizzled in honey and just as sweet. This is quiet sex. This is breathless sighs and wondrous moans and heavy, heavy eyes that just can’t stay open. This is when a single touch of a fingertip in the right place, a single gust of warm air direct from the mouth to the skin can punch a shockwave so harsh through a body that all that is left is quivers and mumbles and more sighs.

 

Sensual sex isn’t as common for a one-night stand. Most people believe it can only exist between two people who already have a deep emotional connection. Not true. Derek knows this. Derek thinks it’s more rewarding to be able to have sensuality with a complete stranger, to let yourself soak up another body in that way, almost worshipfully, just that one time. That it makes it all the more beautiful. Diana was eager to be cherished and her every whimper was a reward for Derek, ever quiver causing a phantom response in his own body. Every inch of her skin Derek tasted and every zone that got her to choke on a moan was returned to, again, again, again. She stared into his eyes when she could and he stared back. If their hands ever left each other’s skin it was for moments too fleeting to be registered. Breathing is deep and so too is every touch, felt not just on the skin but sunk right into the core of you. This kind of sex is also selfish, like at the other end of the scale, just, a complete reversal. Not forced, but accepted. Not demanded, but offered.

 

Derek has never experienced an overlap on his scale. That’s why it’s a scale and not a venn diagram. People have preferences and Derek can read them easily, use his own body language to respond to their sexual type accordingly, pleasure them in the best possible way. The positive feedback loop is half of Derek’s own gratification.

 

Derek has never experienced an overlap.

 

Derek’s intuition has never been wrong.

 

Derek has never lost his control.

 

Until he does.

 

-

 

But before we get there, we have to go here.

 

-

 

Derek met Lydia almost 3 years ago now. He saw in her someone playing the exact same game as him. Wanting all the pleasure and none of the pain.

 

They hooked-up because why wouldn’t they? Two people with horrid past relationships finding something in each other. Not solace, not redemption, none of that crap. But understanding, frank and cold. It made them a good team though and they ended up having sex once every other month, sometimes more. It wasn’t friends-with-benefits but it _was_ no strings attached. Something to fall back on when one of them wasn’t up for the game. Derek could tell when Lydia wanted it by the way she’d come to him with her hair braided in a straight plait down her back. He supposed she could tell by the way he defaulted back to lose fitting sweatshirts.

 

Their sex was consistently good. Lydia is in his top 10 and has stayed there even though they haven’t slept together (at least, in that way) for over a year now.

 

It happened slow enough not to notice but they’re actually friends. Best friends in fact.

 

They bought an apartment together. Easier to be invested in the game when you don’t have to live with the judgment of roommates who don’t understand, or close enough to family who are ‘concerned’ with your life choices. They have a system and it works. Derek cooks, Lydia manages the bills, Derek fixes things that break, Lydia straightens everything back up again and makes it shine. When Lydia forgets to make coffee for both of them in the morning, Derek leaves her alone for the day. If she makes him breakfast, he lets her crash with him on their couch and puts on the classic movies channel.

 

Sometimes they go out together for no reason other than to go out together. Games forgotten for one night. Most weekends though, they dress each other up, decide what kind of atmosphere they’re after, go out together to the bar, restaurant, club.

 

Enter together.

 

Split up.

 

_Game on._

 

They give each other signals across rooms, tables and seas of people. It’s art, really. One goes home first, there’s an hour leeway, then the other follows with their own partner for the evening. No messy crossovers and enough time to get out of the way if the sex is on the hard and fast side and something does happen right inside the doorway.

 

Lydia and Derek are experts at the game, good at choosing willing partners who aren’t going to latch onto them after just one night. On the handful of times that that has happened though, it’s easy enough for one of them to play the part of disgruntled girlfriend of boyfriend. ‘You’re cheating on me? How could you?’ Or even a gentler intimidation, standing half naked at home in the kitchen, a judgemental eyebrow, a thinly veiled comment or two about ‘the kind of person’ they just slept with and most people will leave without saying goodbye.

 

-

 

Now, we’re ready.

 

-

 

_I knew when you took me over, that you were not like the others._

 

Lydia is sick. On her period and in bed with cramps. They’re always bad but she doesn’t want to go on the pill no matter how much Derek encourages her to. She’s stuck between being okay enough to go out like normal, and being sick enough that Derek should stay home with her.

 

“You should go out, Derek.” Her voice is bordering close to exasperated. It’s the fourth time Derek has offered to stay at home.

 

“Lydia, you know that I—”

 

“ _Derek_. It’s Friday night. Please, for the love of god, go out. I will be _fine_.” A spoon has never looked so threatening to Derek as right now.

 

“Drink water. _Sleep_.” Lydia rolls her eyes but smiles at him and makes a shooing motion.

 

He grabs his leather jacket, keys, checks his hair in the mirror, practices his trademark smirk for good measure, then jogs down the stairs to the parking garage before sliding into his Camaro and driving off to the one of his favourite venues.

 

He thinks later, selfishly, that he wishes Lydia had been that little bit sicker, because then he would have stayed at home with her that night, and he never would have met Stiles.

 

But it didn’t happen that way.

 

-

 

It’s early by most peoples’ standards but Derek prefers it this way. He goes up to the bar, greets the regulars working tonight and departs with a drink, retreating to the table furthest inside the space. There aren’t so many lights back here and the table is small, meant for two. The view of the entrance is great and Derek watches the door opening and closing, eyes trailing critically over groups of women, men, couples, mixed parties. He gets through his first drink without anyone catching his eye and a second is brought over without him having to ask; the benefit of being a regular patron. It also doesn’t hurt that he awoke the bar owner to a particular kink he never knew he had.

 

When he’s sitting on drink three Derek has narrowed it down to two possible candidates. A woman with a group of female friends who’s dressed in a tight leather skirt and patterned blouse, hair curled and _astounding_ muscle definition in her legs which are crossed one over the other. Derek has her pinned as preferring hard and fast, judging by the height of her heels, the obviously crafted power in her limbs, and the way she’s playing herself up despite it clearly being a girls night out.

 

Candidate number two is with a large mixed group. He’s lanky but well proportioned, sturdy looking shoulders and a narrow waist outlined by a flattering long-sleeved maroon shirt. He also has a gorgeous mess of brown locks on his head, good for a handhold. It’s harder to pin a type on this guy but Derek can take his time, hidden as he is in the back table. Vanilla, he decides eventually. Or at least a base vanilla with spice on top. He’s dressed too casually to be looking for sensuality, and he’s too eager with his gestures to have the control or drive for one-upmanship. He looks like he’s after fun.

 

Derek downs the last of his drink and leans back into the heavy wooden chair. Dirty or vanilla? The thrill of the competition or something lighter, more playful?

 

Derek considers Lydia at home. As much as she’d pushed him out the door tonight, he knows she’s probably enjoying time alone, undisturbed. Derek knows that he can get... _loud_ , when the sex is on the harsher side. And he’s always good for making his partner just as noisy.

 

That decides it then. Vanilla and spice guy it is.

 

Derek has timed it perfectly. He watches maroon shirt man leave the table and head toward the restrooms. Derek smiles in the dark before leveraging himself up and following, keeping a few paces behind. He waits around the corner, makes sure his shirt it sitting right, and keeps his ear peeled for the door.

 

He hears the click and rounds the corner just as the other man is returning.

 

“Oh god. I’m so sorry.” Derek steps back, lets his face show sincerity and a bit of embarrassment as he grasps the other man by his arms to steady them both. He holds for that extra half a second, enough that the other man will recognise the line being crossed. He draws his hands back quickly, widens his eyes like he’s surprised he kept touching for that long.

 

“That’s alright.” The other man offers him a smile and a shrug. The latter is a good sign; means he hasn’t taken offense and hasn’t cottoned on to Derek’s play. Derek lets himself look the man up and down, quickly, like he can’t help it.

 

“Let me make it up to you. Let me buy you a drink.” Derek lifts the corners of his lips slightly, still playing at embarrassed but adding a dash of hope as well. Not so much to appear desperate, just like he’s realising that his bumble could have been a good thing.

 

The brunet looks Derek up and down, taking in his outstretched hands, his torso, the length of his legs before flicking his eyes up with a smile on his face. Easy, confident, a little playful. Derek’s anticipating what he’ll be like in bed already. _This guys could crack the top 10_ , Derek thinks, though really, it’s far too early to make that call.

 

“Okay. You may buy me drink.” The confidence of his smile comes through in his voice, the playfulness too.

 

Derek smiles, beams even, like he’s grateful that this guy agreed. He is, don’t get him wrong, but he knew his advances were going to be accepted because they always are. The smile is for show.

 

He leads the man to the bar with a hand firm on his back. Not too low, but low enough that it’s clearly more than a friendly gesture. The back feels firm and warm under Derek’s hand. He lets his fingers drag as he removes his hand, taking the barstool next to the other man.

 

“What’s your preferred drink then...”

 

“Stiles.”

 

“Stiles?” Derek can’t help the questioning tone in his voice.

 

“Long story. Not really bar appropriate.”

 

“Well maybe I’ll buy you a drink then, Stiles, and you can tell me a shorter one. Like what you do.”

 

“Sounds good. I like rum and coke.”

 

“Isn’t that a little high school?” Derek raises an eyebrow, cocks his head in the way that best exposes his throat. Stiles flicks his eyes down to it.

 

“Didn’t get a chance in high school. Suppose I’m still catching up.”

 

Derek signals one of the bartenders and orders both of their drinks.

 

“So you were a good boy then? Prodigal son?”

 

Stiles laughs and picks up his drink to take a sip. “Not at all. I was a troublemaker. _But_... my dad was the sheriff so I tried not to cross the illegal line.”

 

“Fair enough.”

 

Derek learns a lot about Stiles over the next hour, only half of it because he’s surprisingly loquacious. Derek always makes a point of listening to the people he’s with, it makes him a better partner and it’s always a confidence booster to have someone actively engaging in what you’re saying. He does find himself drifting once during the conversation, wondering if Stiles’ rapid fire way of speaking is going to carry over to the bedroom.

 

Derek learns that Stiles has gorgeous fingers, long and shapely with strong knuckles. He learns that his mouth is obscene, _always_ , and his lips constantly glisten from being licked so often. His neck is long and perfect for abusing, his veins easily found due to his pallor. And Derek was right, his hair really will be a good hand hold.

 

Derek learns that Stiles is here with friends from college as part of a bi-monthly catch up they’ve instigated since graduating. He’s interning at an animation studio and hopes to be given a job there after his 6 months with them are up. He sub-majored in folklore at university and delights in recounting the origin stories of a handful of common myths before seeming to catch himself, a blush creeping over his face as he admits to embarrassment that Derek let him talk so long. Derek laughs it off and says he had no desire to stop Stiles from talking about something he was clearly so passionate about. Besides, Derek was enjoying it, having written his thesis on parallels between Western and Eastern fairytales. There was a surprisingly amount of crossover.

 

Stiles proposes a toast to useless knowledge and Derek raises his glass, nods, then tilts his head back a little further than necessary, stretching his muscles and pulling the skin taught over his Adam’s apple, shuts his eyes as he swallows, gives Stiles time to look him over.

 

When he looks back, Stiles has that look in his eyes, the one that says to Derek, ‘I’d say yes now, if you asked me to go home with you’.

 

He likes to let that look grow a bit first though, so he argues that it isn’t really useless, it just depends on how you apply it, to which Stiles leans forward into his space, calls him ‘big guy’ – which almost startles a goddamn chuckle out of Derek – and asks to be proven wrong. It’s a perfect opening to take Stiles back to his place, show him the textbook he’s written, the handful of YA novels, but he doesn’t. Too soon.

 

He tells him though, plays it off as modest and proud, which isn’t hard seeing as that’s how he feels anyway. Stiles looks intrigued. He takes a long sip of his drink and keeps eye contact. Derek holds Stiles’ gaze easily, lets his own eyes start reflecting just how much he wants to acquaint his body with Stiles’ own.

 

Stiles lowers his drink slowly. Says some kind of variation on ‘pictures or it didn’t happen’.

 

“I’ve got copies at my apartment.”

 

Derek can’t turn down an opening like that.

 

“What are we waiting for then.”

 

-

 

_I’m under your curse now, but I call it compromise._

 

Stiles fusses over the car and makes a big point of telling Derek it goes with his ‘image’, even though he knows Derek is a closeted literature nerd. He’s not closeted and why can’t he be both, is Derek’s response. Stiles launches into a rant about binaries and Derek takes his eyes off the road for seconds at a time, watching Stiles’ fingers fly through the air, his body starting to hum in anticipation of feeling them all over him.

 

He expects to open the door to his apartment, pause to take his shoes off and make Stiles do the same, and hang his jacket back on its hook. Then he’d take Stiles to his room, show him the bookshelf and its small section dedicated to books _by Derek J. Hale_. Let Stiles look his fill, ask some more questions, then slowly take the book from his hands and put it back on the shelf, step up close, search his face for a moment, read the ‘yes’ in his eyes, then lean in for the first kiss of many for the night.

 

That is not how it happens.

 

The second Derek has followed Stiles into the apartment and shut the door behind him, Stiles is pinning him to it, hands braced either side of his head and that confident, playful smile millimetres from his face.

 

Derek’s eyes widen. He’s honest to god shocked, taken by surprise at Stiles’ forwardness. Derek hadn’t imagined he’d be shy about sex, not by a long shot, but this sudden switch in demeanour is unexpected. He was expecting pointed talk, not physical posturing, and not this soon.

 

“What about the books?”

 

Derek should have just gone with Stiles, latched onto his smile and sunk his teeth in, but it’s been such a long time since he’s been truly surprised. His reaction time isn’t great in the face of spontaneity.

 

“They’re about number seven on the list of things I want to do right now. Want to hear my number one?”

 

Derek takes a deep breath, gets his head back straight, rolls his body forwards so he’s pressing against Stiles. “I think I’d rather you show me.”

 

Stiles’ grin flares up before he’s leaning to meld his lips to Derek’s. The kiss is a strange mix of gentle and demanding as Stiles sucks hard on Derek’s bottom lip but barely tries to use tongue. He keeps his hands pressed into the door above Derek’s head and makes no move to shift them, so Derek moves his own hands up and around, edging under the hem of Stiles’ t-shirt to bring the body closer to his own.

 

Stiles starts moving in shallow rolls against Derek and he can feel the finesse in it, the control that is a giveaway to years of experience. Derek smiles against Stiles’ mouth and moves quickly off to lick, suck, bite at his neck instead. Kissing while smiling is pointless. Too much teeth.

 

Stiles moans and drops his head off to one side. Derek hears his nails scratch down on the door, which reminds him that the reason he went after Stiles and not the woman was so Lydia wouldn’t have to hear him having sex in their entranceway.

 

“Bedroom.” Derek thrusts harshly against Stiles in encouragement. Stiles rolls his hips in retaliation but moves off Derek, gesturing him to lead the way. He already looks dishevelled. His maroon shirt crumpled, lips even slicker than normal, red marks faint but evident on his neck.

 

Derek does take his jacket off first and Stiles reaches out to touch after he does. Derek ducks away though, grabbing Stiles’ hands and tugging him further through the apartment and into his room. He kicks the door shut, doesn’t bother locking it.

 

“Shoes and socks off.”

 

“Demanding.”

 

Stiles does it anyway.

 

Since Stiles is edging close to hard and fast sex as opposed to middle-of-the-road, Derek debates stripping his shirt off before returning to kissing. It’s his trump card. He’s quite proud of it. And it may give him back control of the night after it slipped out of his fingers when Stiles pressed him to the door.

 

Before he can decide though, Stiles, who kicked off his shoes and socks quickly, is diverting his course from Derek to the bookshelf.

 

“Where’s yours?”

 

“Thought you said my books were number seven on your list.” _Give me back control,_ Derek’s brain screams, _stick to your list._

 

“They’ve been bumped up.”

 

Derek thinks he’s getting whiplash.

 

He crowds behind Stiles, nuzzles the back of his neck, behind his ear, sucks the lobe in. “Bottom shelf.”

 

Stiles shivers noticeably but doesn’t turn around. He drops straight down instead, rubbing his ass in a way that must be premeditated all the way down Derek’s legs as he bends.

 

“Huh. Guess you were telling the truth.”

 

“You thought I lied about being a published author?” Derek’s hands itch to get lost in Stiles’ hair.

 

“Can you blame a guy?”

 

“This isn’t about my ‘image’ again, is it?”

 

Stiles straightens up, levels Derek with a stare, purses his lips as if giving it thought. “Yes.”

 

“So now you’ve crossed the books off your list...” Derek presses Stiles back against the bookshelf. “Want to show me what’s on the top of your list?” _Let’s get back to sex. Back to control. Back to vanilla and spice._

 

“With. Pleasure.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

Stiles leans in for a kiss before ducking sideways and under Derek’s arm at the last moment. Derek spins, watching Stiles raise an eyebrow and shrug in a ‘what can you do’ manner. He stalks backwards, lifts his shirt off and throws it in the vague direction of his shoes. He reaches Derek’s bed, sitting himself on the edge of it before dragging his body up towards the head. His jeans shift down an inch in the process, revealing the top of his briefs and his hipbones.

 

“Come get it. _Big guy_.” Stiles even throws in a wink.

 

Confident. Playful. Exactly what his smile has been telling Derek all night. Finally, back into territory Derek had expected, planned for.

 

He doesn’t move right away, just soaks Stiles in. He’s pale, exaggeratedly so against Derek’s midnight blue sheets, but there are splashes of dark pigmentation across his chest like a map. His shoulders look even better sans shirt and his arm muscles display well as he’s leaning back on them.

 

Derek moves languidly onto the bed, presses his hand into the centre of Stiles’ chest to push him down. He hovers over Stiles who is smiling up at him, eager, but making no move.

 

Enough waiting.

 

Derek kisses Stiles hungrily, tongues at the seam of his lips until he opens up, works his way inside. He keeps one arms resting on the bed near Stiles’ head and the other he drags down over his throat to tease at Stiles’ nipples. He squirms a little but there’s no overwhelming response to the stimulation. Derek moves on. Scratches his nails down the side of the brunet’s ribs while changing the angle of the kiss, letting his stubble scrape slightly against Stiles’ lips.

 

That does get a moan and in response, he drags his face over Stiles’ neck and down across his chest. Stiles practically pants at that and his hips move in a broken thrust. He reaches out and yanks at Derek’s shirt, running his hands eagerly over the newly exposed skin and digging his fingernails into Derek’s back as he encourages him back up for another wet kiss.

 

Stiles has resumed his rhythmic hip rolling and Derek feels them both hardening at the steady pressure. He reaches down to thumb both of their jeans open and Stiles sighs, lifts his hips up in a clear ‘take them off’. Derek obliges, stripping the jeans and tossing them to join Stiles’ other clothes. The sight of Stiles straining against his underwear, hands twitching across his stomach as if itching to feel himself, has Derek moving back up Stiles’ body, dropping a litany of kisses across his skin. He kisses all along the hem of his underwear, slips his tongue under, teasing. Stiles swears and tries to move himself under Derek’s mouth, but Derek has his hands firmly on Stiles’ hips, holding him down. Instead he kisses all the way back to Stiles’ mouth and when he gets there, Stiles is vigorous like he can make up for the lack of contact down below by kissing Derek harder than before.

 

Derek lets himself be rolled over by Stiles and smiles up at him as Stiles takes his turn working himself over Derek’s body. His fingers are just what Derek imagined they would be. God they practically _dance_ across his skin, almost magical the way it feels like there’s more points of contact than there actually are.

 

Eventually Stiles relents playing with Derek’s nipples, probably because Derek’s sighs started getting a little too heavy. He shimmies down Derek’s body, pauses when he’s straddling Derek’s crotch, and bears down in his signature body roll once, twice, a third time, encouraging Derek to thrust back against him with his fingers hooked into Derek’s belt loops as he tugs.

 

It’s strangely juvenile, all this thrusting through layers, but Stiles makes it feel _adult_. The way he leans his body back, relying purely on Derek to anchor him. And the noises he makes are, well, it’s a good thing they aren’t in the hallway. Stiles bites his lips, drops his jaw and moans, stretches his neck back and all of it is just making Derek harder.

 

When he finally slides Derek’s zip down and hooks his fingers inside the pants, he yanks both the jeans and boxers off at once in a deft move that leaves Derek completely naked atop his own sheets, with Stiles now standing at the end of his bed holding his clothing.

 

In a well-practised move, Derek throws his head back, shifts his hips, flexes his abdominal muscles. Looks at Stiles with hooded eyes and licks his lips.

 

Stiles moans. Drops the clothes. Strips off his underwear with only a little ceremony, eyes never leaving Derek’s body. He doesn’t seem inclined to move after that though, so Derek leans across the bed to the side table, opens the top draw and pulls out lube and a condom.

 

“Which do you want?”

 

Stiles eyes flick between both before he smirks at Derek and points to the condom.

 

Derek chucks it at him and he catches it easily, slots it between his fingers before he slinks back up the bed. Derek lies back down, spreads his legs, drops lube onto his fingers and warms it a little, waiting for Stiles to put the condom on himself.

 

Stiles grabs his hand, eyes his fingers, licks his lips.

 

“Lube me up. Then I’m gonna ride you.”

 

Derek raises his eyebrows as Stiles moves his hand down to between his legs, surprised once again, but against all odds finding himself perfectly happy to go with Stiles’ whims.

 

The first finger is easy and Stiles smiles and leans down to give Derek a peck when he’s in all the way to the knuckle. Derek deepens the kiss and rubs the nub of his second finger against the rim for a bit before pushing it in. Stiles moans, stops kissing Derek for a moment just to press his face into his neck and breathe harshly.

 

Derek moves in shallow thrusts and small twists of his fingers until Stiles is mouthing at his neck and meeting Derek’s movement. Derek’s retracts his fingers, puts more lube on, and goes back for three. Stiles braces himself on Derek’s chest, circles his hips and rubs his thumbs over Derek’s nipples in time.

 

“Okay, I’m good.” Derek scissors his fingers one last time, brushes against the bundle of nerves, then withdraws his fingers and wipes them on the sheet. Stiles tears open the condom, scoots down a little so he’s straddling Derek near his knees.

 

Derek props himself up, makes a face at Stiles who merely smiles playfully, pops the condom in his mouth and proceeds to deepthroat Derek in one swift movement. He can’t help but buck up as he’s suddenly surrounded by _wet_ and _heat_ and _pressure_ but Stiles doesn’t give him time to do much else, merely sucks and draws his tongue up along the underside as he pulls off.

 

Derek breathes shallowly, clawing internally to get his emotions under control; watches Stiles position himself before grabbing hold of Derek and sinking himself down slowly. He grins when he bottoms out.

 

“Well?” Stiles asks sarcastically of Derek, as if that one word was a complete contextual question.

 

“I thought you were riding me?”

 

“You can’t expect me to do all the work.”

 

Well then.

 

Derek bucks up hard at that comment. Stiles groans and falls forward, hands gripping tight onto the headboard behind Derek.

 

“That. Was mean.” It’s faux anger. Stiles would pull it off if not for the tremors Derek can feel, snug as he is inside the other man.

 

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

 

Stiles is still. Derek is still. They stare at each other and Derek sees fire in Stiles’ eyes.

 

So it’s a challenge after all.

 

Stiles starts fast and shallow and Derek moans and grabs onto his hips, trying to sync their bodies together. He’s only managed three thrusts in time when the other man switches suddenly to rocking backwards and forwards, barely moving on Derek at all. He leans his body down toward Derek’s, folds his arms across Derek’s chest and pushes down hard, looks him in the eye as he unabashedly _uses_ Derek to find the best angle for himself. Derek knows when he gets it right because his eyes flutter shut and he clenches around Derek.

 

Derek manages to get his fingers into Stiles’ hair, brings him in, kisses him, holds him there. He lets Stiles continue to move against him, feeling him clench occasionally, although it does little for his own pleasure. When Stiles finally moves his arms to reciprocate, weaving his fingers into Derek’s own hair, he quickly flips them over and drops down on top of Stiles, stopping him from moving.

 

“Hey.” Stiles tries to move. Derek’s got more muscle.

 

“That. Was mean.” It’s a sardonic repetition of Stiles earlier words. Derek soaks himself in it.

 

Stiles pouts.

 

“I’m going to flip us back over, but only if you’re going to ride me properly. Only if you let me work with you.”

 

Stiles blinks. Then, he smiles.

 

“Gee, if only that were my intention all along.”

 

Derek flips them again and doesn’t wait for Stiles to settle to start thrusting, grabbing onto Stiles’ ass.  Stiles flashes another cocky grin and starts bearing down to meet Derek. Synchronicity comes quickly. They keep the pace steady for a few minutes, sweat gathering on both of them until Derek feels the need to plant his feet on the bed, shift Stiles forward against him and try to get deeper in.

 

Stiles follows him easily and the new angle is better. He’s clenching down on Derek with every other thrust and most of his exhales are moans. When the brunet starts drawling out ‘go faster’, Derek brings a hand up to wrap around Stiles and jerk him off as close to in time with his thrusts as he can manage. Stiles whimpers and leans in to desperately kiss over Derek’s face, across his stubble, under his jawline, lick over the shell of his ear and pant into it. His thumb is flicking back and forth over Derek’s nipple. Hard.

 

Derek shivers and speeds up involuntarily, gripping Stiles tighter and swiping his thumb over the head repeatedly. Stiles keeps panting into his ear and moaning the occasional ‘yes’, or ‘god, right there’ or just a long, drawn out ‘fuck’.

 

After ‘close now’ and ‘Derek’ the words peter out and all Derek is left with is just hot air gushing over the side of his face and Stiles’ blunt nails digging into his sides, spurring him on. When Stiles comes he lets out a shaky groan and clenches down hard on Derek, stopping his thrusting. Derek works him through it until Stiles is done. Without prompting the other man starts back into his movement. Derek never stopped and when Stiles starts moving back against him, it takes only moments and for Stiles to lean down and lap at the warm wetness spread over Derek’s chest, flicking a nipple on the way, before Derek is letting out his own groan, pressing up into Stiles and holding on while he rides out his orgasm.

 

When he opens his eyes, Stiles is grinning above him, blotchy red cheeks and abused lips. A pretty picture that Derek keeps in his mind as the other man rolls off him.

 

He gets rid of the condom, drops in into the bin beside his bed, flops backwards and drops his hands off to his sides. Then, he breathes.

 

 _Fuck_ is about the only think he can think right now.

 

Fuck he was right and Stiles broke top ten. Fuck he’s feeling _alive._ Fuck he wants to do it again. Not a new impulse for Derek’s one-night stands. After all, if it’s going to be the once, you make the most of it. But the reason for it a twisted version of his normal reasoning.

 

Usually, Derek wants round two because he wants that next orgasm. Right now though? He wants the sex. The actually act. He’s riding an adrenaline high and god he just wants more Stiles. More of whatever the hell Stiles is going to think to do next.

 

It sure as damn hell hasn’t been what Derek pictured, seeing him in the bar chatting with his friends, nothing like _vanilla with a bit of spice._ A complete reversal of that, really.

 

Stiles is panting next to him, running hands lazily over his own stomach, an easy smile on his face. When he sees Derek is watching he stills his hand.

 

“So that was pretty good.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Derek lifts his head up, watching Stiles getting out of his bed. He’s got a cluster of moles up on one shoulder and a cluster of fingernail marks somewhat lower. Derek preens a little to see the reddened skin.

 

“Want to know what’s on top of my list now?” Stiles asks.

 

Derek raises his eyebrows.

 

“A shower.” The invitation is clear.

 

Derek’s body thrums. It wants to leap up and shove Stiles into his ensuite bathroom and get him drenched, but overeager isn’t his thing. Instead he pauses to consider the offer, pushes his body up slowly.

 

“Why don’t you just keep the door open and I’ll watch from here.”

 

“Well sure, Derek, if you want to sleep covered in my come that’s up to you.”

 

Derek doesn’t expect him to do as he suggested. He thought there’s be some fight, some more banter, some kind of promise, a ‘shower with me and I’ll blow you’ type of offer. Should have known better.

 

Stiles shrugs, spins on his heel and walks into Derek’s bathroom like he’s been there before. Derek has to admit the confidence is sexy. Adds allure to the already impressive body and mind.

 

From his bed Derek can see straight into the bathroom and the massive glass shower at the back. Stiles turns the water on and fiddles a moment to get the temperature right. Then he steps in.

 

Derek watches Stiles lean his head back slowly, watches as his hair gets flattened to his skull and droplets of water start rolling down the back of his neck, falling off his shoulder blades and dropping at his feet. He keeps his back to Derek and just slowly moves his body. Rolls his neck to one side, then the other, then forwards. Stretches his arms up, drops them slowly, moves his hips rhythmically in a strange sway that has Derek moving his own to match from his place on the bed.

 

If he joins Stiles in the shower, is that losing somehow? Is it giving up too much of the near intangible control he thought he had regained?

 

The view is stunning but being there with him would be more. Derek wonders if Stiles is making noises, sighing out to feel the warmth of the water and the steam starting to curl up from the tiles. The shower is blocking any of those sounds out and Derek finds himself itching to just get a little closer, just to try and hear. To see if he’s right.

 

He’s already leaning forwards, one leg thrown over the side of the bed, when Stiles turns.

 

His eyes lock straight onto Derek’s and Derek feels it like a physical thing. He might actually shiver. He definitely stands up. In fact, he’s standing in the doorway to his bathroom before he really consciously decides to be there, control blown away by the unexpected gust of wind that is this man in front of him.

 

He expects a triumphant smile from Stiles but the golden eyes just stare, and stare, and unpick Derek.

 

It’s like that moment in the romance film where one character is undressing – maybe they got caught in the rain, spilled coffee on their shirt, maybe it’s a next door neighbour situation – and the other person gets caught watching.

 

And they let them watch.

 

It’s that. Power and vulnerability in one simple act. A big mess of a statement. ‘This is me.’ ‘Look.’ ‘I’m letting you look.’ Demanding and candid.

 

They’ve slipped into sensuality and Derek didn’t even notice.

 

He takes a step toward Stiles. Then another. There’s a challenge in Stiles’ eyes but it’s not like before. That was fire, and sparks, but this is...

 

Derek doesn’t even know. It’s the forbidden fruit sliced and laid on a silver platter. A caged dove singing for its captor.

 

This is Stiles.

 

Derek’s in the shower now. He was always going to end up here, the moment Stiles shrugged and waltzed away from the bed. This whole night Derek’s been swept up in the gravity surrounding him but right now, here, looking into Stiles’ eyes and breathing like every particle of air is a wonder, right now is the first time he’s wondering whether maybe, tonight, the two of them were never even playing his game.

 

Derek doesn’t instigate but he blinks and Stiles’ hands are running up his chest and his own are pressed against the wall behind Stiles. He stares at them. How did they get there? But that’s not important, no, what’s important is Stiles kissing him softly on the shoulder, on his collarbone, under his jaw. Stiles drawing trails of heat across his skin that the water can’t wash away. Stiles sighing out and he leans in to Derek, kisses him with open eyes and a slow tongue.

 

He jerks them both off under the spray. Slow, steady, like they have all the time in the world. It’s such a juxtaposition to earlier that Derek’s brain is struggling to do more than simply go along for the ride. He doesn’t thrust into Stiles’ hand but he shivers, twitches when Stiles changes his grip or adds in a twist, a press of fingers into a sensitive spot. They kiss through it and it’s just another sensation, just as constant and pleasant as the hot water still pouring over their bodies.

 

Stiles lets out little _mmms_ and Derek swallows them up, give him quiet _aaahs_ in return.

 

They come seconds apart from one another, Derek’s hand wrapping around Stiles’ to help him finish them, and then they just... stay. Derek screws his eyes shut and presses his forehead hard against Stiles’, trying to get his heartbeat under control.

 

-

 

_This isn’t control. This isn’t control. This isn’t control._

 

They wash themselves off properly and there’s no awkwardness when they both head back naked into Derek’s room to find clothing.

 

Derek pulls fresh underwear out of a draw and puts them on, simply gathering his worn clothes and putting them in his hamper. Stiles redresses in his shirt and briefs and then pulls his socks on.

 

Derek can tell he wants to speak.

 

“So, I think I’ve got a handle your schtick but I don’t want to be presumptuous so... I can spend the night, yes?”

 

“Of course. I’m not that uncourteous.” Derek switches on his bedside lamp then goes to turn the main light off.

 

“Thank fuck for that. This place is _way_ too far away to handle public transport at this hour. Normally when it’s my turn to organise our get togethers I just have everyone over to mine and cook dinner.”

 

Derek slides himself into his side of the bed and pulls back the sheets for Stiles.

 

It’s strange returning to the bed after having showered together, especially with the explicit intent to sleep, and strange to shift back so quickly into easy conversation. Derek and his partners normally end up in the bed and it’s just natural to stay there after sex and fall asleep, both exhausted. There’s normally no discussion about it, just unspoken agreements, and it works well. Stiles though, he can’t seem to sit himself comfortably on Derek’s scale, but Derek’s trying to go with it, trying not to let himself feel awkward about it.

 

He is though. It’s new. Stiles is different. Derek still doesn’t know how to react. He has no established etiquette for this. He’s convinced now by this casual conversation, this camaraderie almost, that the game that he lives by wasn’t enacted tonight.

 

He’s feels less triumphant, less sated, less satisfied. But more relaxed, more comfortable, more... himself.

 

“Does this mean you’ll cook me breakfast tomorrow?” Derek asks, trying to hide his inner-worries.

 

“Not a chance. I’m the guest here. And honestly I’ll probably just get up and go in the morning if that’s cool. Places to be. Friends to reassure you didn’t kill me.” Despite the crack, Stiles slips in bed easily and pulls the sheet up to right under his chin.

 

He looks young with his damp hair sticking up from the covers, skin still flushed from the shower. Derek takes another moment to look then rolls away from Stiles and turns his lamp off.

 

A beat.

 

“’Night.”

 

Derek feels Stiles roll over and soon there’s the sound of rhythmic breathing.

 

If only Derek could so easily slip into sleep.

 

He’s slipped already tonight, headfirst down to someplace he can’t recognise.

 

Control. It’s something he’s had for so long. The ability to judge without fail, prepare his actions, reactions and interactions. He lives by his scale, his routine, the rules of the game. Derek always assumed he needed to have all of that firm in his grasp. Nothing so far in his life since… just _since,_ has given any hint, any suggestion, that he wasn’t living his life right.

 

So then... so then what was tonight? What on earth was Stiles?

 

Who knew that he’d _like_ it when his infallible system gets screwed to shit? He’s stuck to that for years and Stiles just came and tore it all up, grinning the whole time. Not fitting into his goddamn scale that he’s spent years crafting to perfection. And it was perfect. No. It _is_ perfect. Derek can’t abandon it just because this one night with Stiles hasn’t conformed, regardless of how amazingly alive he feels this second, if troubled by that very fact. He’s still riding the afterglow, must be. And as they say, exceptions prove the rule.

 

Maybe this was overdue then. Maybe this loss of control is just a needed blip in the timeline of his life. Stiles will be gone tomorrow morning and then Derek can get back to the game and the rules and feeling normal. If he can just fall asleep he might never have to actually see Stiles again. He said he’d be going early, not staying for breakfast. That’s a good thing.

 

Derek’s heart does something unexplainable. He pushes a hand to his chest, tries to physically force it back down, calm it. But it’s hard to get to, stuck in his throat as it is.

 

_Just go the hell to sleep._

 

He thumps his chest but his heart remains misplaced. Stiles sleeps through, letting out a murmur and burrowing further beneath the sheets, like he’s so comfortable. Like he belongs.

 

Derek needs to... he just... he needs to move.

 

He makes his way to the kitchen in the dark and gets himself a glass of water.

 

“Derek?” Lydia pokes her head out her bedroom door. “What are you doing?”

 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“It’s fine. I’ve basically been asleep since you left. My body’s not used to so many hours rest.” She smiles gently at him and makes her way over to lean beside him against the kitchen island.

 

Derek presses the cool glass against his naked chest.

 

“Everything good?” Lydia asks soft enough that Derek knows it’s not courteous. She’s concerned.

 

He nods.

 

“Did they already go home?”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“Asleep?”

 

He nods. Lydia takes the glass from his fingers, fills it with water again, passes it to him and stays standing across from him by the sink.

 

Derek drinks the entire glass in one go then offers it back to Lydia who simply puts it into the sink.

 

“He’s different.” Derek gives her eventually.

 

“And here I was thinking you’d tried everything in the bedroom.”

 

Derek shakes his head again. “Not like that.”

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They share the silence for a minute. Lydia looks him over like he’ll be somehow physically different just because his insides feel like they are.

 

“Do you want me to handle them in the morning? Or... do you think, I don’t know, you’ll maybe give him your number?”

 

Lydia’s made the same suggestion before. Only a handful of times in the past five months, but enough that he knows she thinks he’s ready for a new kind of game. Thinks they both are, in fact.

 

Derek shrugs. He’s not in the right mind to make that decision, even though it should be a no brainer.

 

“Just leave it to fate.” Lydia blinks a few times. Understandably. Derek has never put stock in fate. It’s an irrational concept. “He said he’d be leaving as soon as he wakes anyway.”

 

Lydia nods.

 

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She kisses him on the cheek before retreating back into her room and shutting the door softly behind her.

 

Derek sighs, drops his head to his chest, drags his hands through his hair and down his face.

 

_Leave it to fate._

 

He’s really going all in with tonight’s theme of a loss on control. Why not? If it’s only going to be the once, may as well make the most of it. That at least is a familiar mantra to Derek.

 

Stiles hasn’t moved and Derek gets back into his bed quickly, trying not to move around too much. Sleep doesn’t come quick but once it does its kind enough to be cottony thick and warm, with no hint of Stiles.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the next morning

_Emotions come I don’t know why, cover up love’s alibi._

 

Derek sleeps in on weekends, always has. A side effect of the game he plays. He’s alone in bed and the space beside him is cold so Stiles is long gone.

 

 _Good_. He tells himself.

 

 _Really?_ Something replies.

 

Derek sighs and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget last night, not any of it. In the sea of Derek’s past relations, Stiles sticks out like a rose in a bed of carnations. 

 

But he needs his control. Better that way. Less mistakes. Less chance for another—Derek throws himself out of bed to avoid the thought.

 

He doesn’t think much of the smell of pancakes and coffee seeping in under his doorway. It’s not an every weekend thing, but Lydia loves big breakfasts enough that it isn’t strange. He could do with a hearty meal following last night.

 

He finds trackpants to pull on and a loose shirt. In the kitchen, two used plates sit on the counter. Derek frowns. It makes sense when he looks into the lounge area.

 

Two people on the couch. Lydia. And Stiles.

 

His heart does that inexplainable manoeuvre again, up into his throat and he coughs at the sudden intrusion.

 

Two sets of eyes turn to him and he feels pinned down by the gazes, regardless of how friendly they are.

 

“Morning,” Lydia says like normal, like always. Derek blinks because shouldn’t she be using some other phrasing that isn’t normal.

 

“Hey there.” Stiles, too, says it like it’s an everyday occurrence.

 

Derek feels like a record at the end of its loop, skipping over and over on the same small part. _Click_. Stiles is here. _Click_. Stiles is here. _Click_. Stiles is here.

 

“I thought you were leaving.” It’s sleep rough and inelegant and Derek wants to take it back immediately because it’s a sentence without forethought and that’s not his way.

 

“Ah yeah, I was, but,” Stiles looks to Lydia, “I ran into this one making pancakes and thought I’d take some of her hospitality.”

 

“Okay, what Stiles is actually saying,” Lydia shoves him with her foot and Derek knows that move, but he thought it was for Lydia and Derek alone, “is that we go way back. High school friends.”

 

“High school sweethearts.” Stiles puts all the emphasis on the ‘sweethearts’ and pairs it with a wink that Derek had thought was just for Derek and Stiles. Because he knows that look, that face, that body language from last night and it’s like a drop into ice-water to see it used so casually here, with none of that contextual heat behind it that made Derek's skin break into goosebumps and his breath catch. It does anyway, even though Stiles is fully dressed and sitting with his apparent high school crush on a couch.

 

Lydia laughs and Derek wants to retreat back into his room to re-evaluate what last night was to him and to Stiles.

 

“We were not sweethearts.” Stiles clutches at his chest and Lydia shoves him again. “Just very close friends.”

 

Stiles smiles at her then with a softness Derek hasn’t seen on his face before. It’s beautiful. Stiles is beautiful.

 

Derek turns his back on the pair. He wants to go back to his room but goddamn this is his house and he won’t be put off by a beautiful boy who’s making Lydia laugh like it’s natural for her and not the rarity that Derek had known it to be for the first several months of their friendship.

 

He makes himself breakfast. He doesn’t want it anymore, but he needs something to occupy his hands and his thoughts, or else they’re going to traipse all over Stiles. (The hands? Or the thoughts? Derek can’t say for certain and that’s not acceptable.) He tries to take his time but it’s hard to slow down a familiar routine and soon he’s standing with a plate of food and a mug of coffee and staring at his apartment like it can tell him where will be safe to sit, a spot where Stiles’ energy won’t reach out and suck him down into that place where control is a memory and feeling abounds.

 

Stiles takes the decision out his hands. Ironic, isn’t it, how easily Derek folds himself down on the couch next to Stiles after he offers the spot. With hardly any thought of resistance.

 

Stiles smiles at him like a friend, and if not for the bruise marking his neck, Derek would fear last night a strange pastiche of a nightmare and a dream.

 

“Not a morning person?” Stiles asks of Derek’s silence.

 

Derek is, is the thing. Six am, even five, isn’t unusual for him. What he’s not, is a morning-after person. This morning is a new low point for him, and his uncertainty in contrast to Lydia’s comfortable conversation must be throwing Stiles for a spin. Derek’s game is an evening setting and the midnight setting and the hush before dawn. It’s not to be played in the harsh of a newly risen sun. Stiles is seeing him without the armour of a leather jacket and veneer of sexual competency and Derek feels barer now than last night. Maybe Stiles is now also in confusion, thinking, ‘who is this person before me, were did that man from last night go’.

 

“Depends on the day,” Derek answers when he can.

 

“Did I wear you out last night?” Stiles asks in a faux-whisper, smile slipping from friendly to teasing.

 

Derek’s brain harshes out at Stiles bringing it up so casually. It should be fine. It should have been a casual thing for Derek and he shouldn’t be feeling this disconnect now from his own reactions. Why is his tongue so heavy and head so clouded?

 

Lydia comes to his rescue. Whether friendship or pity, Derek is grateful. She turns to Stiles, gives him the sharp teasing grin it took Derek months to earn from her. “From what I remember, your technique isn’t going to be wearing anybody out.”

 

“What you remember?” Derek asks Lydia, shock pulling the question from his throat prematurely again.

 

“Yeah that’s…" Stiles gestures between them with one of his gorgeous hands. "Me and Lydia have a history. Sexually speaking.”

 

Derek’s hands tremble. There’s nothing here he feels in control of at all.

 

“We lost out virginity to each other,” Lydia states. “We were probably the most over-researched virgins ever.”

 

“Yeah, we did like actual study sessions on it. Researched all the best brands of condoms and lube and dental dams and stuff. And watched porn.”

 

“We did not do that,” Lydia protests.

 

“Okay well, _I_ watched porn.”

 

“Oh, me too. I’m just clarifying that we didn’t do it together.”

 

Stiles blinks at Lydia. Derek feels shell-shocked as well.

 

“Man, if you’d told that to sixteen year old me I would’ve been like zero to sixty is a second.”

 

Derek wants to ask, to see if it will settle his mind if he actually knows the entire detailed recount of what happened between the two of them. It’s from a time before Lydia’s heartbreak, and Derek knows very little of who she was and how she lived before that. He’s never thought it mattered to the strength of their friendship, and he still doesn’t. It’s tempting though, to ask, to hear something that might help lessen Stiles’ foothold in his brain, to be able to know with immense clarity that what he and Stiles had was not… special. To Stiles, at least. And then maybe, it won’t be as affectual over Derek either. Maybe down the line he won’t have to battle with his heart every time the memory of Stiles’ and his body and their sex comes into his thoughts.

 

It’s not ideal. Derek likes his memories. Each a stepping stone on an infinite learning curve. This though—Stiles—is not a learning curve, no, he’s a rock against which Derek’s ship is bashing again and again and he needs to find a route around in. That’s how he survives.

 

-

_Been watching everything you do. I can look but I can’t touch._

 

Derek eats his breakfast slow and methodical and with his attention fixed on Stiles. He talks to Lydia about memories Derek cannot share, and people who are nothing but unfamiliar names. He learns more about not only Stiles, but Lydia too, and he torments himself by allowing his body to feel jealousy at their interactions. Jealousy, and then guilt because he shouldn’t feel the jealousy toward Lydia that he does. He shouldn’t, because he shouldn’t care if Stiles is better acquainted with her than with Derek, that there’s a history there that’s more than 12 hours. Derek knows parts of Stiles, yes, but not even those are sacred knowledge to him, because Lydia has been with him too. But none of that should bother him, crawl under his skin uncomfortable and distracting.

 

Derek would leave to his bedroom, or the study, or the bathroom but for the fact that he selfishly longs to spend the time with Stiles. Sickeningly, he recognises he’s fixating, but he can’t stop from watching Stiles’ hands, mouth, eyes. When Stiles runs his fingers through his hair, Derek remembers doing the same last night. He barely says a word until Stiles is leaving, and then it’s something mumbled that he can’t recall after the fact, a response to Stiles’ goodbye that came from his mouth while Derek’s brain was occupied.

 

From the kitchen, where Derek takes himself to give Stiles and Lydia space for their farewell, he watches Stiles, his breakfast plate still in his hand. Stiles hugs Lydia, long arms wrapped so far around her Derek imagines she must feel tiny within them.

 

“You know, Lydia. I really have missed you a hell of a lot.”

 

“I know what you mean.”

 

Derek feels an intruder, and fixes his gaze away from the pair. It doesn’t hold. His eyes draw like magnets to Stiles.

 

“I’m gonna call you.”

 

“You better.”

 

Stiles kisses her cheek and is gone, leaving behind echoes of his presence in the blush on Lydia’s cheeks and the thump-thump of Derek’s heart.

 

“Well, that was a blast from the past.”

 

Lydia joins Derek in the kitchen area, helping load breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. It’s helps Derek to be around her like normal, and his heart finds itself calm soon enough.

 

“Gym today?” Lydia asks him.

 

“Yeah.” Like always. He desperately needs that. Some routine, something normal, something his body can do on automatic.

 

-

 _It was getting a little hard not to think about each other_.

 

Derek spends too long at the gym. Lydia bails before him and when he gets home, she’s waiting.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

Derek opens his mouth to say ‘yes’. Or, ‘yes I will be’, which is the more accurate statement. He opens his mouth and a vowel sound comes out flayed and dark.

 

Lydia’s mouth pinches for a moment before she stands. “Come help me cook dinner.”

 

Derek nods. He leaves his bag in the corridor, a luxury of melancholy. He’ll move it later.

 

Lydia hands him two onions. “Diced finely.”

 

He gets out a chopping board, a sharp knife, a sense of calm that’s only a little mangled.

 

Derek can’t think where to start explaining how he feels about Stiles, how he feels _because_ of Stiles. It’s something that looped round in his head on the treadmill at the gym. Maybe Stiles isn’t the important factor. It could have been anyone that didn’t conform to his method. Anyone could have caused the same result of re-jumbling his insides. It’s not Stiles. It just happened to be Stiles.

 

So why then does his brain seem so eager to remember the exact shape of Stiles’ hands, and the pattern of moles on his back, and the shade of his eyes.

 

Derek’s almost finished chopping his second onion by the time he’s ready to talk. “I can’t forget him.”

 

Lydia adds olive oil to a pot on the stove. “It was only last night.”

 

Derek passes her his chopping board. “I don’t remember the others like this.”

 

Lydia drops a piece into the oil, waiting for it to start to sizzle. “Like how?”

 

Derek blinks and there Stiles is on the back of his eyelids.

 

“With such... clarity.”

 

“Stiles _is_ unforgettable,” Lydia agrees. “A character, my mother used to call him. I don’t think she really understood why we were friends.”

 

“Why were you?” Derek looks to Lydia, asking the question he thought to this morning.

 

Lydia shrugs and hands Derek a can of kidney beans and a can opener.

 

“We weren’t at the beginning of high school. I was trying to fit in and Stiles never really cared to be anyone but himself.” Derek nods, believing Lydia with zero doubts. “Then later on I realised he was the only one who could follow when I talked about… well, a lot of things. Mathematics, physics. Plus I had a bit of a change of heart about wanting to be at the top of the high school food chain, and after that—I don’t remember exactly when—we started hanging out.”

 

“Did you date?” Derek tries to sound like he doesn’t care, but the mere fact he's asking this of Lydia is probably betraying him.

 

“Never.”

 

“But you—”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Lydia takes the open can of kidney beans from Derek. “That was just as friends. There was a time when I liked him, and when he liked me, but they didn’t line up.”

 

Lydia adds the beans into the pan with the onions and tomatoes she’d chopped earlier. Derek can’t imagine anyone not liking Stiles, which is his problem of the day. He’s not... he doesn’t like people like that. He likes them for finite periods of time—normally a single night—after which he lets them go. He doesn’t like people like they're inescapable and just because it feels good to do so.

 

“You know, if you want.” Lydia stirs a few more times and then balances the spoon across the edge of the pot and turns to Derek. “I could give you his number and—”

 

“Lydia,” Derek interrupts, frowning.

 

“You could text him or call him,” she continues as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Meet up again.”

 

“I can’t,” Derek argues.

 

Lydia cocks her head, eyebrows lifting like Derek’s being stubborn. “Maybe two years ago you couldn’t. But you’ve changed, Derek.” She doesn’t say it with room for Derek to argue. He rebels against it anyway. At least on the inside. “It’s okay to want to spend time with someone.”

 

Derek shakes his head, not wanting to get into this argument again. The ‘it’s alright’, and ‘it’s okay’, and ‘maybe it’s time’s.

 

“Fine. I just want—" Lydia sighs and turns back to the cooking. “Never mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive. Thank you for all the positive feedback. It was... amazing and much appreciated!
> 
> There will be a 'Part III' also.
> 
> Find more of my writing on [tumblr](http://whatthehellisahoechlin.tumblr.com/tagged/my+fic).


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience.

_I'm waiting for the day when this gets easier._

 

Lydia is ready to go again the next morning. It maybe wouldn’t bother Derek so much if he didn’t run into Stiles later that same day, with her words echoing in his head and something insistent and annoying buzzing in his skin.

 

But that’s later. Hours later. We need to go back to now.

 

It’s morning. Late, by the angle of the sun and the fact Derek’s clock shows closer to midday than midnight. Derek groans and rubs at his eyes. His body hurts. Physically, that is, not—

 

“Stop it,” he tells himself, leaving bed and grabbing for a comfortable hoodie from his chest of drawers. His arm muscles ping as he stretches the material over his head and he rubs at them and shakes them out. He overdid it yesterday. He knew it at the time, and the knowledge is getting reinforced now.

 

Stupid. No wonder Lydia said the things she did. He’d gone beyond his routine. Again. She noticed even though this time he didn’t come out and confide it in her. He’d be angry at her for that if he didn’t value their relationship so much. She’s his closest friend, his closest _anything_.

 

Lydia is sitting at the dining table when Derek moves his aching body out of his room.

 

“Morning,” she greets, though it doesn’t sound like a greeting.

 

There’s a pot of coffee waiting on the table. Derek’s favourite mug and a jug of milk.

 

“Hey,” he says, cautious but not trying to reveal it. It’s too early for masks and wordplay, especially with Lydia.

 

Derek pours himself coffee.

 

“Breakfast,” Lydia asks, but again, she’s not really asking.

 

Derek nods and drinks some coffee.

 

Lydia brings out two plates kept warm in the oven. Toast, tomato, mushroom, egg. Derek can’t believe he didn’t hear her making it all this morning, though looking around the kitchen now he can see a stack of used dishes waiting in the sink. He’ll get around to those later. After whatever this is.

 

Derek reaches for cutlery. If he stretches, he can reach the drawer from his seat. Normally. This morning, a muscle in his shoulder twinges and he grimaces. He stands instead.

 

“You went too hard at the gym yesterday,” Lydia comments, though it’s really not a comment in the traditional sense of an observation.

 

“No need to reprimand me,” Derek says, sitting down and passing her a knife and fork. “I know.”

 

“Someone on your mind?” It must be the morning of Lydia asking questions she already knows the answer too.

 

Derek nods, mouth full of food. He can’t deny it.

 

“I’ve programmed Stiles’ number into your phone,” Lydia tells Derek, spearing mushrooms onto her fork in a neat stack. Derek doesn’t know how she’ll fit them into her mouth at once.

 

“You what?” he asks, after swallowing.

 

“His number’s in your phone. You need to call him.”

 

“I don’t _need_ to do anything.”

 

“But you want to, don’t you?”

 

“No,” Derek refutes immediately, but his eyes are already on his phone. Lydia’s left it on the table. He wonders what the string of numbers could be, whether Stiles would even pick up if he called.

 

Lydia sighs and slides the mushrooms off her fork and into her mouth. Derek knows this is his time to speak without interruption.

 

“I don’t want to call him. I don’t want to call anyone. You know that’s not how things work with me. Relationships are one night maximum. I can’t…” He struggles to find a way to explain it. It’s frustrating. Lydia should already know.

 

The words don’t come. He huffs. “I can’t.”

 

Lydia is still chewing when Derek finishes, but he can tell by her expression already that she’s not buying what he’s selling.

 

He tries again. “Stiles was… different, yes. But I’m still the same. I like the way we do things now. I don’t need anything more. I prefer-”

 

“I’m dating someone.”

 

Derek blinks at Lydia. He hadn’t realised he’d been grappling to find an explanation for so long. She’s finished eating.

 

“You’re…” He can’t reconcile it in his mind. Dating. That’s off the table for them both. That’s how it is and has been for years. Because they’re too… whatever, to invest in someone like that (again).

 

“Almost four months now,” Lydia adds, eyes fixed on Derek to gage a reaction.

 

Derek tries to control his expression, but it’s another unexpected revelation, these words from Lydia. Like with Stiles the other night.

 

Derek shakes his head. It’s too much happening at once for him. There’s a sting inside him, a little pulse that makes him fidget in his seat. Something about this is not right.

 

“How can I not know this already?” Derek asks of Lydia. They’re meant to be best friends.

 

Lydia folds her hands one over the other on the table top and tilts her head to the side. “I didn’t know if you were ready to hear it,” she tells him.

 

The pulse inside Derek gets hot and sharp for a beat, then recedes.

 

“That’s—Of course I want to—Don’t you trust-” His mangled sentence makes him realise the truth in Lydia’s confession. “I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t confide in me.”

 

Lydia’s lips lift at the corners. “It’s fine. I’m telling you now. You’re ready, I think.”

 

“What changed?”

 

“Stiles,” Lydia says simply, though it’s not simple, is it, not at all, that one person that Derek spends one night with—who Lydia happened to know from her old life—can shift something in Derek that he and Lydia can both notice.

 

Derek’s pulse grows hotter and hotter and it’s like anger—no, it is anger.

 

“What the hell, Lydia.”

 

“I’m just telling the truth.”

 

Derek stands abruptly from the table. “Stiles isn’t-”

 

“Derek. _It’s_ _time_. For me and for you.” Lydia speaks with patience, seated still. She’s looking up to Derek but they both know she has the upper hand. “You told me yourself, two nights ago, you told me he was different. And you know what? I was so _relieved_ to hear you say that. Because different? That’s good. That’s what going to make it work for you. He’s… waking you up, Derek.”

 

All Derek can think to say is, “I’ve been awake the whole time.”

 

“There’s a difference between awake and alive.”

 

Derek scoffs. “And you think Stiles has shown me what that is?”

 

“I think he’s starting to.”

 

Lydia stands and picks Derek’s phone up from the table. She holds it out to him.

 

Derek almost doesn’t want to take it from her. It means accepting what she says, on some level at least.

 

-

 

_It was getting a little cold trying to act like I never need no-one._

 

Derek leaves the apartment after washing the dishes with brutal force and changing into the same outfit from yesterday. He knows Lydia is done. Said her spiel, guilted him just the right amount that she knows his skin will be sticky with it for most of the day.

 

There’s no plan as he walks around, feeling the wrong side of cool with no scarf or gloves because he cared more about getting out of the apartment. He walks slowly down the sidewalk, scrolling down down down his contacts until, _there_. Stiles. She’s put a last name in as well. Stiles Stilinski.

 

Derek holds down until the pop up box appears.

 

_Delete Contact? Yes. No._

 

Something stops him. Lydia’s words. His gut. Stiles’ face on the back of his eyelids when he blinks.

 

He hits ‘no’ then shoves the phone away in his jean pocket. Fine. He’ll keep it in there. Doesn’t have to—won’t—call. It’ll just… be there. To appease Lydia if she breaks into his phone again.

 

That decided, Derek expected to feel tension drain from his body, but it lingers, replacing the guilt Lydia dropped on him with an equally unpleasant sensation. Maybe that’s just the cold finally getting to him. Probably. Yes, must be.

 

He walks past the bar where he met Stiles two nights ago. It’s doing its lunch trade now, families sit around tables. Couples. Groups of kids. There’s spare tables and Derek fights the urge to sit down with ferocity because he knows what he’s really fighting is the notion of fate and memory. He won’t call Stiles but maybe if he sits at the place where they met, Stiles will find him again.

 

He’s lingered too long and knows it when one of the waiters asks if he wants to speak to the owner. They all know their history. He shakes his head and moves on.

 

There’s a library nearby that Derek heads toward, the cold finally edging too far on unbareable. The warmth it offers wraps around him immediately, and Derek follows a well-worn path to the non-fiction section, checking for his own book on the shelf. It’s there. He pulls it out and flips to the back page where ages ago he scribbled a mark by his name. Still there. He grips the book tight in his hands, relieved that something at least is unchanged. It’s just the way he made it.

 

He isn’t sure how long he’s been out, but it’s not been long enough yet for Lydia to text him. She normally does after an exchange like that between them. Something that starts them on the path of apology. Maybe it won’t come this time. Maybe it won’t until Derek talks to Stiles. Does he really believe that? Or is he crafting an excuse to allow himself to talk to Stiles without guilt. And why is their guilt there anyway.

 

Because it goes against his rules, his strict outline for relationships.

 

The pages of his book have crumpled beneath his fingers. He tries to smooth them out but you can tell something has happened. He places the book back on the shelf in the same spot.

 

He makes his way home, slow and meandering, and that’s when it happens. A detour that he normally wouldn’t take, a pause in a coffee shop to get something to warm him up, crossing over the street to look closer at the artwork graffitied on the door of a garage. Fate.

 

Derek is so in his head, it takes the brush of a hand on his bicep to draw his attention.

 

“Hey.”

 

Derek wouldn’t know how to begin to describe how he feels as he turns and sees the person standing next to him is Stiles.

 

Relieved. Surprised. Disappointed. Happy. Confused.

 

He wonders whether Lydia arranged this. He believes she could have but doesn’t believe she would have. No, he’s on his own in this.

 

“Hey,” Stiles says again, less loud now that he has Derek’s attention.

 

“Hi,” Derek replies.

 

“What are you doing down here?” Stiles gestures about to the street, thoroughly un-noteworthy.

 

Derek has no answer for that. He shrugs.

 

“Get lost?” Stiles asks, lips lifting in a way Derek knows he’s teasing. (How can he know that? They only met two days ago.)

 

“Maybe a little” Derek concedes. He tries to take stock of himself. Trembling fingers he grips tight around his takeaway coffee cup and fluttering heart that brings the blood to his cheeks.

 

He’d like to pause time so he can sit down on the sidewalk and take a few deeps breaths and ask himself or someone (anyone) why things are happening like this. Do they know where his control went? Do they know if Stiles will be worth surrendering that to? Can they tell him what to do? Please? Anyone?

 

No answers come to him, just a recollection of Lydia’s voice, saying “there’s a different between awake and alive”.

 

Derek inhales, exhales. Between one breath and the other he chooses for himself.

 

-

 

Derek would have called himself reserved and not known he was lying, but as Derek sits with Stiles, on a bench at a bus stop, he opens up. Stiles asks him questions and he answers—they’re real questions, not light like flirting, but deep like 3am worries about the future and the past. Derek tells Stiles why he does what he does, all about the game and his rules and his scale and his habits and he should stop but he ends up confessing, inelegant and haltingly, that he’s afraid already by what he feels. He’ll probably feel that way for a while but it’s…he wants to push through it.

 

Derek would have called Stiles a talker and assumed he’d be poor at listening, and not known that it was a lie. Stiles sits there and follows along with everything Derek says. He can almost see it getting written into some part of Stiles, his words inking themselves into Stiles’ memory, colouring his feelings for Derek in deeper.

 

 

**EPILOGUE**

_I have broken that heart so many times_

_You have a hold of it now_

 

“—and then, _then_ , he decides that we _were_ going the wrong way—like I’d been saying all along—and executes a stunningly illegal u-turn on the highway.”

 

“There was no-one around,” Derek mumbles from under his hand, which is covering his face and hopefully his embarrassment from the eyes of Lydia.

 

Stiles’ hand lands comfortingly on his knee while Lydia laughs at him.

 

“I can’t believe you told her that story,” Derek complains, leaning to whisper in Stiles’ ear. “Her boyfriend is a deputy.”

 

“Relax, Derek,” Stiles whispers back. Like every time, he finds himself doing what Stiles says.

 

He entwines his fingers with Stiles’, clasping their hands on his knee. He remembers when they first met. The feeling of losing control, of Stiles slipping through the cracks in his scale and freaking him out, making him feel lost and not himself. Scared. Exhilarated. Now it’s less intense but much deeper, because he’s chosen to let go with Stiles, and he’s grateful.

 

Lydia wipes at her eyes, then asks, “But apart from that the trip was good?”

 

“Yes,” Derek says.

 

“Fantastic,” Stiles agrees, and pulls out his phone to show Lydia their photos.

 

-

 

Somewhere close to dawn, Derek slips out into the kitchen. Lydia is there, face lit softly as she looks at something on her phone.

 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Derek asks, filling a glass of water.

 

“Had to get up for a conference call.”

 

“Right,” Derek says noticing she’s wearing make-up.

 

Derek drinks the water while Lydia continues typing something into her phone.

 

“Stiles still asleep?” Lydia asks eventually, putting her phone down on the kitchen bench.

 

Derek nods.

 

Stiles has been staying over a lot, even though it means travelling an extra twenty minutes to get to his work in the mornings. Derek has tried convincing Stiles it’s not worth it, that he can do his work anywhere so they should stay at Stiles’ more often. Stiles says Derek has the better bed, which Derek agrees with, but he thinks Stiles is also enjoying reconnecting with Lydia. He can’t fault Stiles for it.

 

Lydia has been absent with increasing frequency too, spending days at a time at her boyfriend’s place. Several of Lydia’s possessions have migrated there. If Lydia were anyone but Lydia, Derek would assume it was unintentional. As it is, he’s sure it’s a purposeful act, like she’s gently encouraging Jordan to invite her to move in. Some nights, he catches Lydia and Stiles talking softly together and wonders whether it's some grand plan they’re in on together. A few months ago, he would have despised them for it, for trying to make something happen behind his back where he had no control over it. Now, he’s happy to see them together, conspiring for his happiness.

 

He hasn’t explicitly thanked Lydia for pushing him to try something with Stiles, but he edges around it this morning, as best he can, hoping she can read the true message in his words.

 

“Thanks for suggesting the trip.”

 

Lydia nods graciously, stepping in to wrap her arms around Derek, cheek pressing firm against his chest. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

 

“I did,” Derek says, smiling, remembering how it felt to say ‘I love you’ to Stiles. How gratifying it was to hear it said back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments always appreciated. 
> 
> Find me (and more fic) on [tumblr.](http://www.whatthehellisahoechlin.tumblr.com/tagged/my+fic)
> 
> This fic has been inspired by multiple songs. You would have noticed the lyrics interspersed between sections of the fic. Below is a full list of songs quoted in order of appearance. You can listen to them all [on 8tracks.](https://8tracks.com/laughing_attack/i-really-should-be-leaving-but-i-stay)  
> Title of fic is from Dissolved Girl by Massive Attack.  
> Two Bodies, Flight Facilities  
> Hold, Vera Blue  
> Otherwise, Morcheeba  
> This Isn’t Control, MS MR  
> Call Me, Blondie  
> What’s Your Name, Morcheeba  
> Cool on Fire, Daniel Johns  
> Damn Baby, Alpine


End file.
